Totally get it. Cost's huge money and the whole financially viable aspect. They said the same about the ARE, then added tons more hospitality.
I think your right, Peter did share something I believe on the KOP added seats aspect. I was just referring to expanding this particular stand because it is possible. Saying something is a pipedream and not realistic isn't actually accurate, and shuts down the debate.
Anyway we are digressing and back to ARE, that far left corner needs to be done. Signage being completed today I believe and this is good to go I think for the 17th. Outside is being cleared up. Actual stand alone looks very imposing in keeping with the MS. Think we'll have 58k in for the 17th Dec.
As I've said and outside of SCC, physically there's not much that's not possible. You can replicate the ARE at the Kop end (as a single stand) and the Main on the SKD side. The physical constraints are maybe only a bit worse than for the Main and ARE.
But the financial constraints are getting more difficult. The club thought long and hard over the finances of the ARE and it's expensive building at height (behind the SKD) and demolition and re-building goes against the general philosophy of building less for proportionately more income. Difficult as it was, the Main Stand was probably low hanging fruit in that respect and the ARE less so. The SKD and Kop would get progressively more difficult financially. I suspect you would have to re-build the whole of the SKD (for quite a lot of medium/ higher priced seats extra true) but the Kop can be extended rather than re-built (but for fewer and lower-priced seats extra). Then there's the economics (and politics) of the context - demolishing houses on the one hand and building over a road on the other.
I can't say which is is the more financially feasible but even if you didn't have to rebuild the SKD - probably the Kop, but for not much return. Then the question of overall capacity, even with 'money to burn' there's a reason why Spurs and the Emirates are just over 60K. From where Anfield was and purely in terms of best return on money spent, the best return was from a capacity of about 51k with plenty of higher earning hospitality. As the stadium has got or gets bigger, the overall income goes up but it's more and more expensive to build for less expensively priced tickets and the return on money spent gets progressively less.
The economics of redevelopment works especially when the existing stadium is bought and paid for and the costs are largely about staffing and maintenance. When we get back there, the club can sensibly think again maybe.
